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Former Clinton economic adviser Laura D’Andrea Tyson describes how the "vicious circle" of...
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Sunday, September 23, 2012, 9:00 AM ETFormer Clinton economic adviser Laura D’Andrea Tyson describes how the "vicious circle" of income inequality leads to educational inequality, which then perpetuates the wealth gaps in the U.S. Tyson also notes how poverty is much higher in single-parent families than in those with married parents. But while she wants to increase taxes for the rich and pour money into education, she stops short of advocating policies to strengthen marriage.
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Just look at the decline in the country over the last 40 years. Do you think our families have gotten better or worse in any of the following categories?
Morals Income levels Usage of drugs or alcohol Crime
The list goes on and on...
There. Fixed it for you.
While the highest rate would go from 35 to 40 percent.
What that means is that the middle class rate would rise 50 percent.
The upper class rate would only rise 14 percent.
Presto - You been lied to by the lefties. The Bush tax cuts benefited the middle class, not the so called rich. GW actually narrowed the income gap.
Exactly ... money is not the problem. Performance, results, efficiency, outcomes, etc. are the problem. And it's not just education .... it's in multiple areas such as tax policy, healthcare, regulation, energy policy, and many others. Dysfunctional politics, crony capitalism, and captured regulators are the source of the problem. More money will only make it even worse.
A level playing field that provides opportunity for the self-dependent and motivated is what helps promote success. You simply cannot have this on a widespread basis in a society our size without government help. We have a "mixed-economy" for a reason.
None of it is necessary. Why are kids being bussed into school at all as if they were diplomats with private limo service? End all of it. Let homeowners keep their property taxes. As it stands, there is a perpetual annuity given to teacher's unions on every house built in America. You never own your house and for what? So that a 'teacher' can retire at 55 with the golden parachute?
End all of it.
There are plenty of individuals who can teach right in their own homes right now. Plenty of very bright elderly folks who have had excellent life experiences that can bring in kids, two, three, four, five at a time IN THEIR OWN HOMES. You pay them for the service. Its a two fer. The teacher gets extra income and the student gets a better education. Its actually a three fer because now all that unnecessary school infrastructure is no longer required, no more gymnasiums or school buses or ridiculous pension, etc. and no more property taxes, period.
The game is over.
We've figured you out, commies. Your little experiment isn't working anymore. End the fascism now.
That sounds like a pretty sweet deal, maybe I should become a high school teacher. You just sit around and get rich while you count down the days to retirement. Why isn't there a waiting list around the corner to apply for this job?
I love your logic too. There are plenty of old people that like to watch Matlock re-runs, why don't we get our legal service from them. Hell, there are plenty of old people that like to watch ER and House, and they have lots of free time. Guess where I'm going next time I need medical care. So long hospitals!
Look, its clear you hate old people by your derision, but I am not going to be similarly glib regarding the greatest generation. There are many of them that are very bright and dynamic people. They are more than capable, probably better in educating, than our current crop of union lackey derelicts. If they would be allowed to teach, they would compete on merit. It would 1) remove all the unnecessary waste of infrastructure, 2) eliminate the need for property taxes, 3) help shore up the elderly demographic retirement accounts since social security is a joke and 4) help them so that they don't have to work at Wal Mart.
I offer practical solutions. You offer the old, tired joke about old people = Matlock reruns. It was funny 10 years ago. Not so much anymore. Find a new knock knock joke, kid.
As for tired jokes, the teacher union lackey thing is pretty flimsy. Are you aware that only 22 states even have teacher unions? Again, that was a greatest generation ideal that has been steadily dismantled over the past 20 years.
You deride pensions(which keep the elderly from working at Wal-Mart) and government excess, but then you talk about shoring up the elderly demographic retirement accounts , just curious as to where this money comes from? Are you advocating transfer payments? Another bailout? Please explain.
Ed, that's the boomers, the offspring of the Greatest Generation...
Perhaps you have not noticed how trendy tinkering with Arduino and Raspberry Pi is.
Or perhaps you haven't visited a site like Instructables recently.
There's lots of interesting tinkering going on.
Teachers cannot teach a classroom full of children who have been shunted aside their entire lives, and these groups of children, in reality, need much more than a teacher can be expected to give them.
I find it ironic that my wife, a very capable teacher who performs well in a disciplined classroom, and performed even better before all of this "testing" became the norm, is blamed by all of the truly lousy parents, who expect teachers to fix everything! A Childs education begins at home. A healthy family structure which supports their children's education obviously makes an enormous difference.
Who would have ever thought a child needs nurturing parents. Since your wife feels we have come to the point that better education going forward for our children is better parenting, I have an idea for your wife. Have her go to her teacher's Union Boss and suggest all future increases in money intended for schools, instead be funneled toward a new federal program where the money is given to the parents where it must be spent on better parenting skills. We get your wife's frustrations. What we don't get is the constant fight put up by the Unions to choke the competion to public education, i.e. charter and private schools and a parents right to have their dollars go to educate their children in the best way they see fit.
Since large government is always excused by it's advocates because of the problems it is expanded to solve, it is long past overdue that they show some sort of cost/benefit results and offer up some of the stupendous myriad of programs that are dysfunctional, duplicative or working at cross purposes for cuts that would finance new spending without abusing the American taxpayer further.
Such real reform would of necessity reduce the numbers of unwarranted beneficiaries while increasing their incentive to work, and reduce the taxload on productive Americans for a change. Give them more time to spend with their kids.
Advocates of all-encompassing government give such short shrift to the real opportunity cost that depresses prospects in the private sector so that more may always be handed to the public sector which is well organized for that result. This has gone on for too long and real results are needed instead of excuses and more demands, starting with the teachers unions.
Second, if monies are to be available for charter and private schools, then the same rules for public schools should apply. I.E., if charter and private schools do not have to accept students who they do not want, neither does public education.
This would force some sorely needed new direction in educating young Americans. Maybe if SOME children were BOOTED OUT, the remaining children (and parents), would realize just how important education needs to taken in this country.
Education must become a VALUE and thereby it is VALUABLE to families and students. Many poor don't value education and the hard work associated with it. They don't have the drive to be the next scientist or doctor. Lip service is easy but studying non-stop and skipping parties is a real commitment.
And being a student is a vow of poverty below the line of what many people want to deal with. Many people coming out of HS want a job right away so they can buy an iPhone or a car or have the money to party with and they don't want to just have money to eat, sleep and study. I did not own a car until I was 30. When I left HS I went to college and lived a lower standard of living than my classmates who went to work. They were happy with their decision and a number did OK but I definitely live at a higher standard than they do now.
I work with a lot of educated people from other countries and their drive is far beyond what US kids have. They work all day and into the night to move up. And they don't have iPhones. Our kids don't get it and I assume the parents don't either. Our kids like hip hop, having fun, texting all day and looking for the next mobile phone and letting dad and/or mom pay for it. I would also note the Nickelodeon shows on TV that show kids living a high end life with no apparent means of support like it is all magic. Unbelievably unrealistic.
Teachers and the unions are a mess. There are a lot of good teachers but the bad ones drag the whole profession down. The union doesn't want good teachers because they challenge the need for a union. Good people get paid more and the union does not stand for that. Giving teachers raises based on another degree is just a racket. I don't need my 2nd grade kid to be taught math by someone who has a PHD in math. It is killing a fly with a sledgehammer. Retiring at 55 with ridiculous benefits is fiscally unsustainable.
As another individual posted our school infrastructure has never been bigger or better. The books have never been better. The internet provides more information at our kids' fingertips than we even dreamed existed. There are no excuses. And the internet should become a huge teaching platform and we need less teachers and more technology. Non academic facilities like gyms and fields should be shared across schools. Not every school needs their own facility. We need to focus our capital not waste it.
The educational system is definitely slanted against boys and men which is then exacerbated as the work force is slanted against them too. The male education deficit is a huge problem and if men cannot find jobs then we will have problems with families forming or staying together. Kids will be born out of wedlock and will have no models which to emulate from their parents. The view of some women in that there is a zero sum game competition between men and women and that they don't need men is asinine and massively destructive. Suffering is all around us from this stupidity and that includes women, children and men.
Our education system definitely is not teaching practical job skills and at least half of our students need this because they will not go to college. We need much better technical training schools for jobs that give coursework for 1 to 2 years. Many people will benefit from this curriculum. Computer programming should be minted from 2 year colleges by the thousands not 4 year colleges. Colleges want to hang on to these degrees because they make the college money but we need to move on and allocate resources better.
We cannot change the family directly by law but we can support the two main principals which are the man and woman. Right now the men are getting nothing for the most part and it is killing us. I am not confident that men will ever acquire 4 year degrees like women do which means we need another pathway for men.
And if we are not giving enough resources to children it is worth noting that we have built a country that transfers most of the wealth to the older generation to live a dream retirement and there are consequences to that choice. Children don't vote so they don't matter when push comes to shove. And we send plenty of money to other countries because of their poor and then say we don't give enough to our poor? Pull that money back in if that is a problem. Elitist politicians and business leaders give lip service to this so they can get more votes or look responsible but they are not helping. When do they ever visit a ghetto? When has a business leader like Warren B ever invested a billion into a poor neighborhood? They invest in India but not in inner cities. Of course there are plenty of business hating politicians that make business leaders miserable whenever they do try to do something. It is very risky to invest in the US versus other countries that solicit our business leaders.
If I could change one thing it would be that education becomes a true value for our children. That would overcome a lot of the other challenges. The motivation should not be that we are noncompetitive and are poor which are negatives and are focused only on outcomes but rather that we value education because we want to know things and out of that will come many of the positive things we are looking for.
in 1964
"these new programs will lead to the
destruction of the black family
in america".
Millions have never been to college and created successful businesses, despite Govt oppression and what Obama stated:
“ If you've got a business—you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen.”
This is NOT the Change I was Hoping for from Obama.
Need to focus on a mission for the school system and focus the capital on that mission. Running a school and a YMCA is not focus. Putting education first is a value issue. If a school district has that whipped and they want to do more sports or whatever it is their dime. But don't look for federal funds for other things or ask for sympathy if their kids are not cutting it.
The school referendums that I have seen are all in a rut and have little to no imagination on how they are put together and presented. And most don't have more than one choice.
"Some of the voters in the school district (who may be renters) voted to have all the property owners pay for these programs. "
You don't think that the property tax is reflected in their rent?
Yes, I do. But they don't. Besides, supply and demand is more important in setting rents.
Very good question.
Another way to look at is if low incomes mean that children will not or cannot learn then it has to hold true that all high income people come from rich backgrounds going back into the distant past generation after generation. That does not make sense.
Access is important but desire is more important.
No argument from me.
We are in violent agreement.